Best Of

Well, I don’t really mind it. When the music says “it’s the most wonderful time of the year” why argue. The only thing I avoid is the stress. I do the minimum to prepare… I buy some nice treats, I put up the fake Christmas tree, I buy a few simple gifts like chocolates or flowering plants.

@Shoshin1 said:
For many of our clients, putting food on the table each week is already a struggle. This time of year simply adds another layer of stress for families who are barely making ends meet.

It’s good work you do, @Shoshin1, very worthy. We have food banks here as well, for those people who have difficulty getting by, and I have great admiration for the volunteers who take care of the packages there.

Nowadays, Christmas and many other so-called religious holidays have become a money-making capitalist enterprise, nothing more, nothing less. For me it is just another day, nothing special, and if the weather is good I go to the beach to worship the sun and the sea.

Where I work, we help people sort out their debts by working with clients and their creditors. It is a free service, and we also operate the local food bank.

In the lead-up to Christmas each year, we set aside a room at the office where people can donate children’s Christmas presents for families who are struggling financially. The local Rotary club also donates supermarket cards so families can buy essential items.

About a week before Christmas, families with children begin coming in to choose presents and receive a supermarket card. At the same time, people continue to come in daily for food assistance.

For many of our clients, putting food on the table each week is already a struggle. This time of year simply adds another layer of stress for families who are barely making ends meet.

Grateful for:

1. Had a late Christmas family meal yesterday with siblings (fish in cheese and onion sauce, broccoli and carrots, fried potato slices, homemade pudding, bottle of white wine etc) Very nice too.
2. Late presents: Austrian biscuits, Baileys (might have a small glass with my morning porridge). Really nice crackers for cheese
3. Middle Way. In other words a bit of Xmas not a frenzied consumerist 'holiday'.
4. Food deliver later this morning
5. Night time quiet (2:40 AM here)
6. Deciding to be a Solarpunk (at least halfway there)
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk

Liberte!
Freedom is a mind set.
Peace, the willingness to open a hand
Unity comes from opening the heart
To enjoy the rose, one may need to put up with a few thorns.
Look around. That old worn path hides countless little adventures, delights, joys.
When you are free, no binding can hold you,
Not steel
Not iron
Not words
Be Free

Peace to All

Yes, ‘tis the season to be merry… but I came across this the other day:

“If the holidays have ever made you feel pressured, guilty, or oddly exhausted…
You’re not broken, Chris.
You’re responding to something designed to make you feel this way.
Relief comes when you realize this.
So does permission to relax.
Let me show you how deep it goes.
What if the most famous figure of Christmas wasn’t created by religion…
But by a soda company?
Sounds crazy, right?
Yet, that’s exactly what happened.
Before Coca-Cola stepped in, Christmas was a quiet church holiday.
Easter was the big deal. Resurrection. Drama. The main event.
Christmas was a simple birth story.
Beautiful.
Definitely NOT built for a global shopping frenzy.
Then Coca-Cola looked at their sales numbers.
Summer: booming.
Spring: fine.
Winter: no one drinking cold brown sugar water.
So they asked the most dangerous question in marketing:
“How do we change what people feel?”
They took St Nicholas, once thin and dressed in green, blended him with old folklore, made him older, jollier, and dressed him head to toe in Coca-Cola red and white.
Then they flooded the image everywhere.
Billboards.
Magazines.
Packaging.
Repeat a myth long enough… and it becomes “tradition.”
Slowly, Christmas shifted from:
“Quiet reflection”…
To shopping, pressure, guilt, and emotional spending dressed up as “holiday spirit.”
Love became something you could prove with receipts.
And now…
• Entire economies rely on December
• Hanukkah has been inflated to compete
• Childhood itself got branded
All because a soft drink company wanted winter sales.
This goes beyond marketing.
It’s cultural hypnosis.
And here’s the spiritual punchline.
If a corporation can rebrand a saint, rewrite a holiday, and colonize our emotions…
What else in our lives quietly came from a boardroom?
So this year, you get to choose.
Presence over presents.
Connection over consumption.
Meaning over marketing.

Enjoy the lights.
Enjoy the food.
Enjoy the warmth.

Just don’t let a soda company define your spirit.”

Have a Buddhaful season folks

I knew that being a Christian was beneficial. We started our Christmas in November. It has been less frantic and more relaxed for sure. Since doing more Christian style meditation and mealtime sharing, I am wondering what sort of Xtian-Buddhist I am.

I am reminded of a meditation used by a Christian desert mystic I met years ago. Sweeping away everything that was not God. This morning I was sweeping away meditation, all thoughts, mantra, prayer etc. Soon there will only be clear light or Nothing.

Seems good to me... as that slowly dissolves...

@Jeroen said:
I see that you’re grappling with the problem. For you, philosophy and the mind are a support for when your empathic gifts bring other people’s emotions too close. I hope this approach affords you peace and equanimity.

I wonder, have you ever approached a Buddhist teacher about your empathy? It seems to me an obstacle in the way of practice, and they may have a way of coping with it.

In some ways it is an obstacle, in other ways its helpful. I also take in emotions that are positive that may have taken work to develop. And once seen and experienced are easier to remember and train.

More importantly though it helps with non attachment and not identifying as strongly with what is occurring in the mind.

With internet communities there has been more information and help from others. And even more talk and recognition in the psychology sphere. But at least so far there doesn't seem to be a "cure" but there are plenty of strategies for adjusting and coping to manage the more negative aspects.